At the annual Manasota Regional Envirothon held yesterday, 115 students on 23 teams representing seven Manatee and Sarasota County high schools competed at Oscar Scherer State Park in Osprey. The Envirothon is an outdoor environmental team competition for high school students, testing their knowledge of aquatics, forestry, soils, wildlife, and this year’s current topic ‘Renewable Energy for a Sustainable Future’. Manatee River Soil and Water Conservation District along with Sarasota Soil and Water Conservation District co-host the annual competition.

Results

Placing first for Manatee County was ‘The Evergreens’ from Manatee High School, coached by Boontarika Elswick.  In second and third place respectively, were ‘The Palmetto Mariners’ and ‘The Palmetto Seals’ teams from Palmetto High School, both coached by Natalie Richard.

MANATEE County: 1st Place Team: ‘The Evergreens’ from Manatee High School – L to R- Keep Manatee Beautiful Executive Director Jennifer Hoffman, students Henry Leatham, Shalalai Elswick, Guering Lara, Rosetta Vang, Henry Zheng, Olive Palmer-Boyes and Daniel Villagomez, and Coach Boontarika Elswick.

Representing Sarasota County, Suncoast Polytechnical High School, team ‘Super Cool Awesome Team’ placed first. Nina Henderson was the teacher/advisor for Suncoast Polytechnical High School teams.  In second and third place respectively were ‘V.E.G.-Very Educated Girls’ and ‘Ferocious Five’ teams from Venice High School, both coached by Irina Shutovsky.

SARASOTA County: 1st Place Team: ‘Super Cool Awesome Team’ from Suncoast Polytechnical High School- L to R-students Nathan Barr, Michel Simon, Jason Lockwood, Eva Poore, Coach Nina Henderson, and students David DellaVedova and Nadine Brum.

Other high schools competing were Booker, Southeast and Sarasota High Schools.

Sponsors and Volunteers

Lunch was sponsored by the Manatee Fish and Game Association. Sarasota County Farm Bureau, the Green Jean Foundation, and the Mosaic Company sponsored the event t-shirts. Keep Manatee Beautiful and Keep Sarasota County Beautiful sponsored the awards.  Sarasota and Manatee SWCD board member representatives Chuck Johnston and Julie Tillett attended.  Jennifer Hoffman, Executive Director, with Keep Manatee Beautiful and Wendi Crisp, Program Manager, Keep Sarasota County Beautiful attended to congratulate the students and share some upcoming volunteer opportunities. The support of the sponsors and cooperating agencies is greatly appreciated.

Youth Education Manager Sabrina Cummings,  with Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast provided information about her organization with the students during event check in, as did a representative of Oscar Scherer State Park.  We hope the students will come back to explore the park on their own time in the future.

Manatee County Natural Resources Department, UF/IFAS Manatee County Extension, Florida Forest Service, USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service, UF/IFAS Sarasota County Extension and Sustainability, and Oscar Scherer State Park volunteers also participated.  Thanks to Sarasota County Cattlemen’s Association for the use of their tables and chairs.

Future contests

First place teams from each county are eligible to compete in the State Envirothon in April, at the Suncoast Youth Education Center in Apollo Beach.  https://www.flenvirothon.com/

Top teams from each state will compete in the North American Envirothon https://envirothon.org/ during the summer at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York.

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